“Doubt Your Doubts” (John 20:19-31)
“Doubt Your Doubts” (John 20:19-31)
Series: What Difference Does It Make?
by Pastor Nate Walther
Second Sunday of Easter, 04/12/2026
I don’t know if you pay attention to religious trends. I do, it kind of comes with the territory as a pastor, and one I’ve heard lately is to essentially treat doubt as a good thing. The idea is simply this: it’s not good to accept faith blindly, but to really think about what you believe. As such, doubt has become a way to hedge against arrogance that assumes, “I have all the answers”, and embrace positive virtues like humility and repentance. In that sense that doubt has also become a virtue for many people.
So how about it? Is that a mindset we should adopt that will MAKE A DIFFERENCE in our lives? Before we hear God’s Word on this topic today, take a minute to think about the doubts you’re facing currently. Maybe you’re unsure where a relationship is at right now. Perhaps it has something to do with your health. How about job security, do you have it? What’s your housing situation going to be like next year? Forget next year, do you know how you’re going to pay that bill next month? Will interest rates reverse so you can finally refinance or actually purchase a home? Will the stock market recover from its recent slump so you can meet your financial goals? What’s going to happen with the war in Iran – is it truly winding down, or will it worsen leading to pain at the fuel pump or perhaps even worse pain than we can imagine right now? Is that problem with your vehicle going to turn into a big deal? What about that sound your water heater is making?
Yeah… doubt is something we struggle with everywhere else in our life. We feel so much better if we can get these issues resolved! We naturally long for answers and certainty, it’s just how we’re wired as human beings. (It’s why we appreciate the sciences, it’s even why the athlete who has everything still wants the security of that next contract!) And today in his Word, God confirms the same is true for our faith. He wants better for us, so he simply tells us to DOUBT OUR DOUBTS. What better place to see it than in the biblical account of “Doubting Thomas”?
First of all, let’s be clear: when Jesus told Thomas to “Do not continue to doubt, but believe”, that’s Jesus calling doubt a bad thing. In fact, when Jesus says “stop doubting”, he literally says in his first language, “do not be unbelieving”, which also literally makes doubt the opposite of faith. Doubt is not some virtue for our faith. Doubt gets in the way of saving faith. That said, notice how Jesus approaches Thomas. There’s a gentleness here. There’s also a distinct invitation preceding it. “Put your finger here and look at my hands. Take your hand and put it into my side…” In that context Jesus lovingly says, “Don’t be unbelieving, but believe – i.e. Now that you’ve seen the evidence, Thomas, there is no room for doubt!”
And how does Thomas respond to Jesus? Well, he promotes doubt as a positive thing and says, “There’s no way! It can’t be true you’re alive after you died, Jesus! You must be an imposter!…” No, that’s not some hidden meaning in the original language. Instead, it’s simply the short, striking reply of faith that we see in our text: “MY LORD AND MY GOD!…” Have you ever noticed that nicknames often come from single incidents, and they don’t always describe a person well? That’s “Doubting Thomas”. Despite his doubts Thomas answered them with faith. He does so here. He also does so to a degree back in John 11. When Jesus there spoke about his impending death, we are told, “Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, ‘Let us also go to Jerusalem that we may die with him,’” Now I’m sure Thomas did not completely understand all that was about to happen to Jesus. (None of the disciples did!) But it was a better response than Peter who chastised Jesus at the time for talk of dying. Still, because of the event we’re hearing today, Thomas gets the nickname.
But anybody would have doubted like Thomas. It’s no virtue, just an acknowledgement of our sinful shortcomings. It’s why Jesus doesn’t just obliterate Thomas for his doubts. But he does direct him to DOUBT HIS DOUBTS when confronted by God’s truth, which is exactly what Thomas did in the end… As he did so, Jesus seems to prove that faith isn’t as blind as it may appear to be. After all, he satisfied Thomas’s doubts by actually appearing to him! But what about our doubts? We haven’t seen Jesus appear to us, so are we just supposed to trust him blindly?
Or could it be that God satisfies our doubts more than we realize? Just consider the great event we are celebrating this time of the year. Do you realize there is absolutely no event in ancient history as well documented as the events of the first Easter? That’s not just a point of dogma, it’s a cold hard fact! As we think about the confession of faith we will again use today from 1 Corinthians 15, there are literally hundreds of witnesses who saw the risen Christ, many of whom comprised of the Bible writers who wrote about it: Matthew, John, Peter, and James saw Jesus alive with their own eyes – likely Mark & Jude as well. Meanwhile, Luke carefully investigated many others who had seen Jesus alive. Years later Jesus also appeared to Paul alive to complete the rest of the New Testament. And we have copies of all their writings dating back to within a couple hundred years of Christ. In some cases like John, we have examples of his writing just a couple of generations after he lived! By that metric, if you’re going to doubt anything the Bible says about the resurrection, you’d really have to doubt everything we know from all of ancient history. Seriously, throw out Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great – any copies we have of eyewitness accounts from their lives are from many more centuries (if not a millenium) later. But who’s really willing to doubt all of human history?
At the same time, how do we know Jesus’ earliest followers didn’t just steal his body and say he had risen, like the Jewish leaders claimed they did? Because that introduces an entirely new level of doubt! Why in the world would they do that? Why perpetuate a lie which they had refused to believe possible after Jesus death, as the disciples & Thomas’s initial skepticism demonstrate? Then, why would they risk their lives for a belief so contrary to human experience and expectation? If they had not actually seen Jesus rise, why would they be willing to be killed for it – as most of them were? For example, we think Thomas was martyred in India! There’s no reason for any of it unless these events actually happened. From the pure perspective of history, which considers primary source material and an author’s purpose in evaluating the writing – without any bias against religion and allowing for the fact that if you actually believe there is a God, it’s not hard to believe he could do a miracle – the resurrection is the gold standard of historic credibility! Jesus will satisfy our intellectual doubts, if only we let him.
More than that, Jesus satisfies our spiritual doubts. Think of what Jesus told Thomas & the Disciples, “Peace be with you.” We primarily think of this word as peace among people, such as peace from war, but when the Hebrews heard the word peace, they primarily thought of peace with God. And that’s what Jesus offers us, the kind of peace that we need to be true. It explains everything about how we live and think. Why else would anybody want to do any good for others if they get nothing out of it, or feel guilt when they have committed a sin? Why else would mankind care about legacy and producing things that last after they’re gone? If you just die and that’s it, none of this would matter! But deep down in our souls we know we’re accountable to God and that more comes after death… Yet the best any other religion offers is a blind faith, a wishful thinking that you’ve done enough good for what comes next. Which is precisely where Jesus takes the blindness out of that faith. He clearly shows himself as a perfect substitute for us and a perfect sacrifice for our sin. Far from hiding salvation, he simply offers himself on the cross – as proof that something real was done about our sin – then he offers us his empty grave – as proof that something real was done about death. As we think about our sin, and the guilt we carry, and the evil in this world, and those we couldn’t bear losing (or those we have had to bear losing), where else are we ever going to find an answer like the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
Dear friends in Christ, DOUBT YOUR DOUBTS. They’re not as solid as you think they are. That’s true for every concern of body & soul. Whatever you face, look to see how Jesus has helped you in the past. Look at the cross and tomb. Look at your life personally, see how God has worked out things over the last year, or over the last decade for your good. Then trust God will do the same in the future. Trust those same words Jesus said about us in our sermon text, “Blessed are those who have not see yet believe.” Whenever you have doubts about health or wealth, doubts that are relational or vocational in nature, doubts about your own value & self-worth, even doubts about mortality and eternity – trust that Christ will bless you, go to him in prayer, and take the hand he offers when life has you knocked to the ground – hands pierced by nails for you!
Yes, we will still doubt at times, It is a sign of sin in this world and of our own sin, yet it’s no unforgiveable sin. But the key thought, how should us doubting Christians address such doubts? Take page out of Thomas’s book. Put your fingers in the side of his flesh. You & I find that in Word & Sacrament, in the message of which he is the flesh incarnate, and in his own body & blood given for us in Lords Supper. Then DOUBT YOUR DOUBTS. Doubt is not the goal! It’s not with anything else in our lives, so don’t allow Satan to get you to accept it as some virtue here, that it’s somehow OK not to have the answers with faith. No, Jesus and his certain answers to us are the goal. He lives to MAKE A DIFFERENCE for our doubts… And don’t let anyone tell you it’s arrogant to know what God knows and listen to what God says. At the same time, do be humble & repentant as you see how Jesus works patiently on you despite your doubts, just like he did with “Doubting Thomas.” Amen.
